XI.

For the two years she and Lee were no longer in touch, Kara would see the folded photo of her and Zak in her locker every time she opened it and the visible half of the picture would always only remind her of what was missing, and then she always thought of Lee anyway.

Every day.

Then the day came that made everything before then feel almost like it had never been real. The unimportant parts, at least. She was on the floor buried in the wires of a Viper's underbelly and trying not to let the knowledge that Lee was dead touch her too deep inside just yet while she still had work to do, and then his soft voice spoke above her.

"Hey." It was just one word, but somehow it opened up the inside of herself where she wouldn't let any thoughts of him enter just yet, and then it finally all sank in. Lee. She had thought he was gone. It knocked the breath out of her as she slowly turned her head to see his grinning face. The bastard.

And soon she was on her feet, head dizzy from being pulled up from the floor for a second, and they were staring at each other a little stupidly like neither of them could believe it. An hour before she had been touching his picture but now she didn't notice that his hand kept holding onto hers for a long moment as their eyes were locked.

Zak was dead. That had happened. A lot of shit had happened that they still couldn't change. But they were still alive. Both of them, out of just some miserable five-digit number of survivors of the entire human population. And right then that just seemed too good to be true and it was all that mattered anymore.

The end of the world was a second chance for a lot of them.

XII.

After Kendra Shaw's funeral, Lee and Kara share a quiet drink in his quarters on the Pegasus. Everything between them is a little quiet lately, but it isn't quite awkward because they both understand why.

"I think my dad is going to give her that commendation," he suddenly says in a blank, unrevealing tone.

She looks up at him with some surprise, and then looks back away. "She was a good soldier," she says simply, not needing to explain that it wasn't as if she ever liked her.

"I know," he said. "That's all she was. I keep thinking about it for some reason. I could never be what she was. Because being an officer was all she had. She had nobody."

Kara is just silent in thought for a while, and then Lee goes on, "That was kind of the way I used to think of my dad, you know. Because the people on his ship were all he had time for. And now...now he told me something. That the only thing that stops him from being just like Cain and being able to make decisions like she did is that he's a father. Because he would have to face me the next day."

She smiles slowly, her face faintly lighting up. "I guess he ended up being a family man after all."

She remembers then. On just her first day on Galactica she caught on quickly to how everyone on the ship liked to call the commander "the old man." It was like he was the whole crew's father, greatly respected by everyone. Zeus in the flesh.

Still she felt a little nervous when she was called into his quarters. He looked up lazily from a book as she saluted and stood with her posture rigid, hands held behind her back.

"You requested to see me, Sir," she said formally.

His brow lifted like he was a little taken aback. "Oh...Yeah. Sit down, won't you?" he said casually.

"Sir?" she said a little awkwardly.

He smiled a little, in that way of his she was already a little used to which she never would have imagined the father Lee had always hated so much would smile at anyone. "You can call me Bill if you like. Come here and have a drink. I just wanted to welcome you again and wondered how you've been doing."

Kara tried to look relaxed as she slowly took a seat in front of his desk. She didn't know if she could handle this. If she got too comfortable around Zak's father, surely he would start being able to see the guilt that must be showing in her eyes as transparently as it felt like it was. She didn't know if she could stand it if he started approving of her so much.

But maybe he needed this, especially with Lee now refusing to make amends. She wondered if, after having two boys, he had ever wanted a daughter. If he could ever look at her and see that, that was what she was willing to be for him.

XIII.

Kara is as familiar to him as a sister, something that it seems has always been there in his life like a favorite room in the house he grew up in. For years he has known her loud and hysterical laugh, the way her eyes squint when she smiles, how her voice changes and she won't look anyone in the eye when something is wrong with her, every single angle and curve and color of her appearance in any light.

She is always there, always the same, always behaving like he is able to predict she will. Something rock-hard and solid he can always fall onto without the surface budging, hard woman of war bending him into shape when he gets too soft or loses focus, almost more like a reliable weapon than a trustworthy friend.

But he finds this was simply the easier way to see her, a safe perception allowing for no curiosity about what more there is to her. He never fully realized before what all there was under the invulnerability and coldness, or at least never allowed himself to think about it. He never imagined how all of her features he knows well enough to paint a perfect picture of her in his head would feel to the touch, surprisingly soft and warm, how her voice could sound small and defenseless speaking or gasping quietly right by his ear. It is a whole new world opening up for him, their loud laughter echoing through the night on New Caprica and making it finally feel for the first time in so long that anything is possible. Yes, it will be okay. The future ahead of them isn't so bleak and hopeless after all.

To finally completely know her this way for only one night and then have it all immediately taken back away. It is the first thing he may never be able to forgive her for.

The future is one dark, inevitable downward spiral toward death and happiness anywhere with anyone is a frakking joke and their people are going to rot away on this rock if the Cylons don't show up and finish them off quicker. And if he tells Dee that she makes him happy then it's not a lie because it's all only relative anymore and he isn't even sure what she expects that to mean.

XIV.

After two months of the occupation on New Caprica, white walls have become all Kara knows.

And usually unbreakable silence. The most maddening thing about Leoben when he is here is that no matter what she does, the bastard never gets angry or loses his endless patience, as if he is really willing to keep doing this forever until he's able to break her. And how much longer can this possibly still go on before she loses it?

She occupies herself when she is alone trying to remember and think about something else, anything. She does push-ups four times a day because reminding herself of being locked up in a brig is better than paying attention to the kind of prison she is in now. Lying on the couch and staring up at the ceiling, she mouths the words to the colonial anthem to make sure she can still say them all. She tries to imagine large open spaces for jogging in and the sounds of glasses clashing together in the rec room. Late nights she can recall on the ship, laughing hard until her body was sore and exhausted from it, feeling warm and filled with light like she was glowing green on the inside with ambrosia. The time the old man came to see her in sick bay and after he kissed her forehead she wouldn't let it show that she was close to tears. One night she stayed up late and dozed off in a seat in the ready room watching flight footage on the projector and woke up again just enough to be aware of Helo carrying her to her bunk and putting a blanket over her.

And one time in the rec room she remembers clumsily falling back against somebody while trying to move to let Jammer get through a crowd and somehow knowing before turning and looking that it was Lee she had run into, nobody else. Like she could feel him close, or had just unconsciously been able to identify the distinct sound of his breathing. She remembers this, only thinking about it very much now when she is willing to cling to anything from before to hang onto and keep from falling further into a dark void of mutilation of everything familiar to her.

But it's too hard. Too much. To remember some things...

She can't help but always go back to those memories even though it is like sitting down somewhere there was always a chair before and then falling because it's been taken away. She falls back into her old self that has a place in her life for the Galactica and the name Starbuck as easily and naturally as ever, like nothing has changed. The Starbuck who Lee and all those other officers who have been her family knew. And then she is always a little disoriented a moment to remember.

That morning and the way he looked at her. Kara Anders, just like he said. Right.

No, she has to tell herself before she lets certain thoughts about him grow too much. It's good that he is on the ship instead of here with them. She certainly can't bring herself to regret that he isn't the one out there having to deal with toasters treating everyone like animals and worry about his missing wife. The very idea is as insane and ridiculous as it is strangely, distantly painful.

If only it wasn't still so natural for her to think of him. If only the distance between them and all the time that had passed made any difference now. She could feel him close and she can feel him far away.

Something else. Anything. She closes her eyes and blocks out the white walls and ceiling, seeing instead darkness. Space. Stars. Completely open and free space. She thinks of the feeling of being there, not running freely now but flying, floating and hovering. The controls under her fingers and stick in her hand in a tight, excited grip. Control...

Kara never thinks twice about how it is these things she takes comfort in remembering and places like a cockpit where she likes to imagine herself being again. At home. Images that allow her to block out the whole last year, everything in her life since they settled on this planet. Places that the face of her husband has never even been a part of. Her memories of him are not as secure and comforting, like a bed one is surprised to wake up in when they first take a moment to remember that they did not go to sleep in their own the night before.

It is too easy to go back to the other part of herself while she is locked up here separated from everything but herself, the one that she should know is lost or at least will never be what it once was. The memories play like films, perfectly captured and preserved in her mind even as they clearly show a long gone time. Beginning of reel. A time Lee was giving a briefing and she made a joke that got everyone in the ready room laughing until he ordered loudly, "Alright, that's enough," but then he couldn't keep a straight face the rest of the time and he and Kara eventually both started cracking up again.

Then that absence of ground again, remembering what she let get snatched out from under her. "Good luck. You're gonna need it."

End of reel.

XV.

The crystal-clear image of Kara dances in front of him tauntingly, motivation to attack but also a heating distraction, until Helo punches him so hard he spins and feels like he's never going to catch solid ground under him but has just vanished into space for a moment.

Then she appears again in front of him, one of the first things he sees when his vision stops moving, and it takes him a moment to realize he is not imagining her again and her face is really there where she is watching on the side of the ring.

"Come on," she whispers, quietly enough that she doesn't have to admit she heard herself say it. Even if she said nothing he would be able to see the command in her eyes. Get up.

Keep fighting.

In two minutes it will just seem like he imagined it.